Robert McChesney is Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois. He hosts the program Media Matters on WILL-AM every Sunday afternoon from 1-2pm central time. He and John Nichols, The Nation‘s Washington correspondent, are the founders of Free Press, the media reform network, and the authors of Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (New Press) and The Death and Life of American Journalism (Nation Books). He has written sixteen books and his work has been translated into fifteen languages.
It’s time to get back to our roots—the grassroots—to fight for reform of an increasingly monopolistic and manipulative media.
His next appointee for FCC chair could determine whether robber barons consolidate their domination of the public discourse.
These new political monsters have let loose an avalanche of scorched-earth, negative campaign ads—and enriched TV stations in the process.
It’s past time for open hearings and a coherent policy on media ownership in the digital age.
Unchecked by campaign finance regulation, unchallenged by a journalism sufficient to expose abuses, a nearly unbeatable force opposed progressives in 2010.